I hate it when Stuttering George goes out of the country and embarrasses us:

Bush's visit to the Canadian capital was intended to mend relations frayed by the war in Iraq. But as antiwar demonstrators clashed with riot police outside Parliament, Bush replied with defiance when asked at a news conference whether he was responsible for a rift between Canada and the United States.

"We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to stay in place for four more years, and it's a foreign policy that works with our neighbors," he said.

Except that our "neighbors" completely disagree with it and will contribute nothing.

The White House had said in advance that it expected no diplomatic breakthroughs on the two-day trip, which will take Bush to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Wednesday to thank residents for accepting U.S. aircraft stranded after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

If we wanted a "diplomatic breakthrough" we would have sent a diplomat...if we had one.

This just kind of makes you want to duck your head and tell people that you don't know who that guy is and you've never seen him before...

Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," Nicollette Sheridan's towel malfunction and naked leap into the arms of Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens in a promotion before ABC's "Monday Night Football," and the recent Detroit Pistons/Indiana Pacers game melee are just the most recent signs of a new culture that has emerged among Americans, and it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Years ago, the lowest of lowdown men wouldn't use the kind of language that's routinely used today not only in the presence of women but often to women. To see men sitting while a woman was standing on a public conveyance used to be unthinkable. Children addressing adults by their first name was also unthinkable, not to mention the use of foul language in the presence of or to adults. How about guys and girls walking down the street whilst the guy has his hand in the girl's rear pocket?

Oh please....I've heard women discussing men and using language that would make Dick Cheney (not to mention his lesbian daughter) blush. So what is going to stop all of this children-calling-Mr.-Williams-by-his-first-name as well as the sneaky ass-grabbing?

Customs, traditions and moral values (oh my!)

For nearly a half-century, the nation's liberals, along with the education establishment, pseudo-intellectuals and the courts, have waged war on traditions, customs and moral values. Many in this generation have been counseled to believe that there are no moral absolutes. Instead, what's moral or immoral is a matter of convenience, personal opinion, or what is or is not criminal.

During the 1960s, the education establishment launched its agenda to undermine lessons children learned from their parents and the church with fads like "values clarification." So-called sex-education classes were simply indoctrination that sought to undermine family/church strictures against premarital sex. Lessons of abstinence were ridiculed, considered passe, and replaced with lessons about condoms, birth control pills and abortion. Further undermining of parental authority came with legal and extra-legal measures to assist teenage abortions with neither parental knowledge nor consent.

Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth, and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works and what doesn't.

Like winking at a white lady or drinking from the wrong water fountain. Damn Gosh, those were the days....

As many readers will recall, I participated in NBC's election night coverage on Nov. 2. I was at Rockefeller Center with Ana Marie Cox and Joe Trippi, representing the blogosphere. Around 1:00 in the morning, I was walking through a deserted lunch room, returning to our set, when a man approached from the opposite direction, heading toward the men's room. Because he was well dressed and tanned, I took him to be an on-air person. He went out of his way to walk up to me, extended his hand, and introduced himself as Brian Williams. I'd never heard of him, but I said I was John Hinderaker. He said: "I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciate what you guys are doing." I thanked him and walked on.

So: is Williams a secret admirer of bloggers like us, or not?

Or does Williams appreciate the twin-ply that he probably thought Hindrocket just loaded onto the spindle....

Burns, once justifiably regarded as one of our better war correspondents, seems to be suffering from "Burns out," feeding his audience what they want to hear.

Of course, that is exactly what Roger has been doing since he got a little attention as a blogger. No smear is too icky, no partisan attack is too outrageous as long as it keeps the daily hit level high. Roger has become addicted to the blogging high, and we don't need to see the burned-out keyboards on the floor or catch a whiff of flop sweat in the air to know that...he's got a bloggy on his back.

Meanwhile Steve at No More Mr. Nice Blog reports that noted literary deconstructionist and social critic Pat Sajak is appalled that his peers (we assume that he means Bob Eubanks, Bob Barker, and that smartypants francophile Alex Trebeck) are not up in arms enough over the death of Theo Van Gogh who was mainly famous for having a last name that got him discounts from hookers. Sajak forgets that a true artist should die for his art and, in fact, if anyone wants to kill Vincent Gallo, not only won't we get in your way, we'll hold your coat and even drive the getaway car if we have the afternoon free.

On the dumber side of the planet, Rush Limbaugh (serial divorcee, drug addict, poor bathroom habits...that guy) gets all hard-nippled because someone mentioned his name on Wolf Blitzer:

SNOW: The 74-year-old Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter is praised not just for his columns but for his journalism. In 1978 he won a Pulitzer for exposing questionable financial dealings of President Carter's budget director Burt Lance. In the Reagan administration was outspoken about Nancy Reagan's role in her husband's administration viewing it as inappropriate. In the Clinton years he once called Hillary Clinton a "congenital liar" for her role in the Whitewater scandal.

RUSH SOUND BITE: Rush Limbaugh, half my brain tied behind my back...

In 2004, the New York Times remains the target of steady criticism from conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, for being too liberal, and Safire's placement is sure to be watched.

RUSH: So my name just gets thrown in there by the reporter, a little tape from this program. After this report, Wolf Blitzer asked for e-mail suggestions from the CNN audience, and then at the end of the show read a suggestion, and this is how that went.

BLITZER: Here's how you're weighing in on our web question today. We've been asking you this question all day: "Who do you think should replace William Safire at the New York Times?" Let's read some of your e-mail. We're getting hundreds of e-mail responses. Kay writes this: "Rush Limbaugh should replace William Safire."

RUSH: So in the Wolf Blitzer show, we've got some public support that's building out there. As you know I openly applied for this gig yesterday on this program, and already a groundswell is taking place out there, and it's so big, and it's so huge that not even CNN could ignore this. I was not the only nation mentioned. There are other people's names mentioned, Ann Coulter, Jon Stewart who -- I now know who he is, by the way --

Yes. Some woman named "Kay" emailed Wolf and we got us a groundswell folks, tectonic is scope, which is probably why Rush refers to himself as a "nation". And the really good news is that Rush now knows who Jon Stewart is. You know, the guy whose TV show is a huge success, unlike a certain bloated boil-butt whose syndicated show imploded because it couldn't carry its weight at two in the morning against infomercials and Canadian rules bowling. Besides Rush's audience really aren't TV kind of people because you have to actually look as well as listen, and that's doing two things at once which is really kind of hard and, in their case, probably dangerous.

And finally, the Pentagon used CNN to dupe the insurgents by reporting news of a phony assault in Fallujah. Seeing as how the White House has been using Fox News like this to fool the public for the past three years, it's not like it was stretch or anything...

Then again, Fox wants it. They want it bad. You can see it in their eyes....

According to a link over at Atrios, all you baseball-loving homos better stay away from National League games:

Cass wants a U.S. Supreme Court that will outlaw abortion and gay marriage. "Do you want to take your children to a National League baseball game for instance and have homosexuals showing affection to one another? I don't want my kids to see that," he said.

Apparently gays are welcome at American League games because they have the "designated hitter" which, according to the Bible (Yogi 3:16), is also a abomination.

Hoping to cash in on the recent spate of eBay auctions for cheese sandwiches and fish sticks bearing the likeness of our Savior or members of His immediate family, a local Long's Drugs photo processor discovered the Reclusive Deity making a cameo appearance in a photo included in someone's vacation shots from their visit to Branson.

As marines aboard fast patrol boats roared up the Euphrates on a dawn raid on Sunday, images pressed in of another American war where troops moved up wide rivers on camouflaged boats, with machine-gunners nervously scanning riverbanks for the hidden enemy.

That war is rarely mentioned among the American troops in Iraq, many of whom were not yet born when the last American combat units withdrew from Vietnam more than 30 years ago. A war that America did not win is considered a bad talisman among those men and women, who privately admit to fears that this war could be lost.

But as an orange moon sank below the bulrushes on Sunday morning, thoughts of Vietnam were hard to avoid.

Remember that O'Neill isn't serving with any of these guys, but he is co-existing on the same planet with them...

I'm having a harder and harder time feeling any sympathy for Israel with crap like this going on:

Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin.

The incident was not as shocking as the recording of an Israeli officer pumping the body of a 13-year-old girl full of bullets and then saying he would have shot her even if she had been three years old.

Nor was it as nauseating as the pictures in an Israeli newspaper of ultra-orthodox soldiers mocking Palestinian corpses by impaling a man's head on a pole and sticking a cigarette in his mouth.

But the matter of the violin touched on something deeper about the way Israelis see themselves, and their conflict with the Palestinians.

The violinist, Wissam Tayem, was on his way to a music lesson near Nablus when he said an Israeli officer ordered him to "play something sad" while soldiers made fun of him. After several minutes, he was told he could pass.

It may be that the soldiers wanted Mr Tayem to prove he was indeed a musician walking to a lesson because, as a man under 30, he would not normally have been permitted through the checkpoint.

But after the incident was videotaped by Jewish women peace activists, it prompted revulsion among Israelis not normally perturbed about the treatment of Arabs.

The rightwing Army Radio commentator Uri Orbach found the incident disturbingly reminiscent of Jewish musicians forced to provide background music to mass murder. "What about Majdanek?" he asked, referring to the Nazi extermination camp.

The critics were not drawing a parallel between an Israeli roadblock and a Nazi camp. Their concern was that Jewish suffering had been diminished by the humiliation of Mr Tayem.

Yoram Kaniuk, author of a book about a Jewish violinist forced to play for a concentration camp commander, wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the soldiers responsible should be put on trial "not for abusing Arabs but for disgracing the Holocaust".

Let's not talk about putting twenty bullets in a 13-year old girl or putting heads on stakes. Let's talk about squandering the moral capital that is the sad result of the greatest massacre in the history of man. Let's talk about me.

Maybe, instead of running a "spin doctor" search contest, Israel should use the money and buy a big frigging mirror and then take a good look at themselves.

Sometime back we referred to Mel Gibson's theological snuff film as Crouching Jesus, Hidden Agenda. Now reader Ed (no, not that Ed, the other one) provides us with a link where handy tips are provided for slipping Jesus through the eye of a needle cracks:

If you are worried that your local schools are teaching children that religion has no place in the study of biology, please consider donating biology-related books, posters, CDs, and DVDs with religious content to your school. These materials can be given to public libraries, too, and even directly to science teachers who can keep them in the classroom as convenient reference sources. Students benefit greatly from being exposed to alternatives to the theory of evolution, which is the bias of most textbooks used these days.

These donations are completely legal, and provide a very good way to provide balance in the school without formally challenging the agenda of the mainstream curriculum.

[...]

These donations can also be tax deductible, but are best made anonymously so that a connection is not easily made to the religious affiliations of the donor. Purchases made at Amazon.com can be sent directly to the school's librarian. (my emphasis)

Oh. And if you want to have some fun, there's a contest to rename Intelligent Design. Why? Here's why:

As you know, lately we have enjoyed increasing success in getting religious explanations of life reintroduced into public school curricula, and we believe our strategy of "repackaging" every 10 years has been a critical contributor to this success. In particular, it has allowed our members to appear more "fair and balanced" at school board meetings.

Because appearing to be "fair and balanced" is much more important than actually being "fair and balanced".

Courtesy of Evan and some smartypants at Swarthmore, here are some book stickers in case you live in one of those states that, you know, have school boards that are dominated by the hooting, the feces-throwing, the proud but-not-in-a-sinful-way.

Since finding a copy of Lynne Cheney's Sisters is harder to find than Ben Shapiro at a Marine recruiting station, the good people at livejournal, under the tender oversight of Mrs. Tarquin Biscuitbarrel, have published it on-line for all of your self gratification needs.

I'm sure Ms. Cheney, who is currently out promoting public awareness about the heartbreak of vaginal dryness, would not approve. On the other hand her daughter, who is a lesbian, might approve although I'm sure she would like to offer her mom some pointers because, well, she's a lesbian, and she's got mad lesbian skillz, yo.

Meghan Gurdon, who is America's Worst Mother, wrote a Fever Swamp column this week about taking two of her of her daughters (I believe she took Wasabi and Asphyxia Mae, but definitely not her son Vato who is much too manly for any fancy book-learnin') to a library reading that was doubling as some kind of pro-turkey re-education camp. Quite frankly, the column was unreadable. Well, let's just say more unreadable than usual and call it even.

Therefore we will take up some more mundane issues this week, but not so mundane as to be be confused with a Lileks column. I would have to go into a coma to crawl under that bar. First off:
The Mysteries of the Animal Kingdom

Every evening about nine-ish we take the dogs, Satchmo (known to our housekeeper as "Gordo") and Beckham (known to the rest of us as "Sir Poops-A-Lot") out for an evening walk...and poop. Exactly two weeks ago as we came up the steps we encountered a family of four raccoons cavorting out front. We think it's a female with three kids (we call them Meghan, Phoebe, Violet, and Molly. Don't ask us why). Naturally the dogs went apeshit (or bassetshit to be exact) as the larger of the raccoons hunched it's back and hissed at us. Since raccoons are fairly unpleasant creatures with big nasty teeth, we beat a retreat back into the house for awhile until the coast was clear.

Saturday night...no raccoons. Sunday night ...no raccoons. And so on.

Last Friday night...raccoons. This time in the neighbors tree and peering out from under some bushes. Again with the hissing and arched back.

For school Casey has to read three books for three classes by Christmas break. For her English class, she chose Friday Night Lights for obvious reasons (it's the serious book du jour for the teenage set this year). For her Asian studies class she had to choose a novel dealing with Asian culture, and since they started off the year reading The Good Earth, she chose The Joy Luck Club, mainly because we thought she wouldn't be able to finish Memoirs of A Geisha in time.

For her anatomy class the students were asked to read a science fiction novel that had something to do with the body. Hmmmmm.

We're not really a sci-fi family, so we hopped in the car and headed off to Mysterious Galaxy, an absolutely terrific independent bookstore in San Diego that specializes in science fiction/fantasy/mystery/horror literature, to pick their collective enlarged brains. After much consulting and phone calls to off-duty employees, we arrived at Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear.

Since I'm the kind of swell dad that most kids can only dream about, I offered to read Darwin's Radio while Casey is finishing up Joy Luck so that I could answer any questions that she might come up with before report time.

Big mistake.

Greg Bear prose:

Tilde weighed and measured everything, took only the best, discarded the second best, yet never cut ties in case her past connections should prove useful. Franco had a square jaw and white teeth and a square head with thick black hair shaved at the sides, an eagle nose, Mediterranean olive skin, broad shoulders and arms knotted with muscles, fine hands, very strong. He was not too smart for Tilde, but no dummy, either. Mitch could imagine Tilde pulled from her thick Austrian forrest by the prospect of bedding Franco, light against dark, like layers in a torte. He fely curiously detached from this image. Tilde made love with a mechanical rigor that had deceived Mitch for a time, until he realized she was merely going through the moves, one after the other, as a kind of intellectual exercise. She ate the same way. Nothing moved her deeply, yet she had real wit at times, and a lovely smile that drew lines on the corners of those thin, precise, lips.

Brent Bozell is downright unhappy with all of those "gangsters" (that would mean people of the dusky hue in Bozell-land) in sports, as well as people who use, you know, gutter language:

Too many players aspire to create gangsta images and cover themselves with tattoos, record nasty rap albums in their spare time, and push and kick a cameraman or two just to maintain that bad-boy image.

[...]

Too many college-game audiences love to chant the fuller form of "B.S." at referees, and when the game is nationally televised, all of America has to put up with the profanities roared. Earlier this year, a pile of University of Maryland supporters showed up in "F--- Duke" T-shirts. Sauced-up fans in the stands greeted Duke's J.J. Redick at the free-throw line with loud chants of "F--- you." Many of these offenders are the college's own students. You'd think that university staff and alumni alike would discourage this kind of incivility. It hardly builds the image of a university as a place for high-minded civility and dispassionate learning.

And when it comes to high-minded civility, well, Brent is our go-to guy:

But alas, it was not to be. The moment I walked in, Bozell looked at me angrily and said, "That was horseshit, what you said!" I reconstruct here the rest of the discussion as best I can recall. Although I wrote it down on the way home, a word here or there may be less than precise. Rest assured, though, the nasty parts from Bozell are verbatim:

WALDMAN: What part of it?

BOZELL: You're a liar!

WALDMAN: What are you talking about?

BOZELL: That stuff about Kerry!

WALDMAN: What, about atrocities?

BOZELL: He called them war criminals!

WALDMAN: He didn't accuse any individuals of anything.

BOZELL: You're a liar!

WALDMAN: He never accused those guys of anything.

BOZELL: John Kerry is a liar, and you're a liar!

WALDMAN: What are you talking about?

BOZELL: Fuck you!

At that, Bozell stormed out.

Presumably to go wash his own mouth out with soap.

Next up: Bill Bennett on why your football pool will cause you to go to hell...

You just get in the car and drive to a place where you are forbidden to help. So you sit by the fire and listen to your stomach growl, but it’s not really a growl of anger or frustration; more like a purr of anticipation. The meal appears; the meal is consumed; the plates are removed. Go!

One would be hard pressed to find anything in the entire Peggy Noonan canon of Reagan-daddy worship to match the suck job of Les Csorba. Here are a few Csorba quotes to lose your turkey to:

It's hard to miss the metaphor when President Bush stepped into the middle of a heated quarrel, pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials, and straightened his shirt cuffs as he calmly returned to business. Great leaders don't stand around and allow chaos to unravel on their watch.

[...]

The media elite and inside-the-Beltway pundits who thought (and perhaps hoped) that the president might coast, sell out, pander, move to the center and simply relish in his electoral triumph, are still not acquainted with his soul and heart. Fiercely competitive and results driven, he didn't come to Washington simply to fill the chair under the Resolute desk.

[...]

Some conservatives worry because none of these trusted confidants are ideological and, are perhaps, too Bushian. But, they too, misread the impatience of a man driven to accomplish great things.

[...]

Organizationally, as the MBA president navigates the seas of turmoil at home and abroad, he is a disciplined captain. Like any CEO of a corporate ship, he knows that leveraging intellectual capital and fostering cohesiveness and buy-in are basic to performance-oriented leadership.

So, with all of the "leveraging intellectual capital and fostering cohesiveness and buy-in are basic to performance-oriented leadership" could you tell that Les is a partner in an executive search firm?

I suppose I shoud take the time to wish everyone a Happy Thansgiving, one of my least favorite holidays. While I enjoy getting together with my family, I'm a firm believer that we should do this anyway without the artifice of a day of thanks to the sky god.

So here's to the Pilgrims who sat down with the indigenous people of the Americas to break bread before slaughtering most of them and leaving the rest to open casinos with all you can eat buffets and Pai Gow Poker...

Echidne points out that, if you're not shooting out babies like a pez dispenser, you're part of the problem:

"When you talk about protecting marriage, you need to talk about divorce," said Bryce Christensen, a Southern Utah University professor who writes frequently about family issues.

While Christensen doesn't oppose the campaign to enact state and federal bans on gay marriage, he worries it's distracting from immediate threats to marriage's place in society.

"If those initiatives are part of a broader effort to reaffirm lifetime fidelity in marriage, they're worthwhile," he said. "If they're isolated - if we don't address cohabitation and casual divorce and deliberate childlessness - then I think they're futile and will be brushed aside."

I hope that you are prepared for this. I especially like the idea that they are going to address deliberate childlessness in marriage. What would addressing that entail? Requiring fertility checks of couples who have not reproduced within some reasonable period of time? Or banning all contraception? The latter is more likely. The plan would also have to address women's economic independence as that makes divorce easier, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was emphasis on the need to reinstall a male-dominated family structure even among nonbelievers. After all, it is the institution of traditional marriage that is to be saved here.

In their world, the Santorums with six kids* are going to be the norm while the Gurdon's, with a measly four, will be seen as underachievers.

As I'm sure you noticed blogging has been a bit scarce this week and I want to assure everyone that I'm not suffering from the George Got Re-elected, We're All Gonna Die Blues. The way I look at it: when life gives you lemons, throw them at the heads of people you don't like and then run like hell. It's all snark fodder to me.

But I was away from the computer most of this week, with work sucking up a honking chunk of my extra time. The best part was not reading Sullivan, Kaus, Totten, Simon, Reynolds, or any of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders all week, which was quite refreshing, thank you very much. Tonight Mrs. TBogg and I went and saw The Motorcycle Diaries (we liked it) but only because she didn't want to go see the SpongeBob movie which would only re-ignite the great SpongeBob: Gay or Not? debate, and who needs that on a date?. Tomorrow night the three of us are off to Cox Arena to see Green Day with all the other American Idiots, so it's set the computer to record Desperate Housewives for later viewing, and blogging be damned.

Never have more kids than you can handle...or bury in the backyard without the neighbors getting suspicious

If she weren't already known as America's Worst Mother, Meghan Cox Gurdon would be a shoo-in for...America's Worst Mother. In this weeks episode Meghan reasserts her startling and completely out-of-left-field theory that (prepare yourself): kids-are-difficult-and-what's-a-mother-to-do.

Reading that simple statement you now know how an Englishman must have felt in 1859 when he first read Origin of the Species, or the "shock of the new" that overwhelmed Jonah Goldberg when he discovered kettle korn; that pure, nipple-hardening exhilaration when the veil before your eyes is swept away and... it...all...seems...so...obvious.

To prove her point, Meghan's kids (Anabaptist, Moline, Cabernet, and Beserker Bob) chose this week to be just horrid:

I drop in the last dirty glass, flip the dishwasher shut, flick off the burner, pull on invisible judges' robes, and go into the next room.

Violet's face is scarlet, her hair is falling in her face, and indignant tears splash down her cheeks. "It's my chair and I was just about to use it and Paris came along and now he's sitting on it and he won't get off!" She breaks off and points dramatically to her brother, who is exercising squatter's rights on a tiny Ikea chair.

"Well, she won't leave me alone!" he rejoins. His tears have mixed with Oreo crumbs to give his face an interesting "distressed" effect. Drawing breath, he sobs out, "I was just walking along minding my business and I saw the chair, it was upside down, and no one was using it so I sat down in it and now Violet is screaming at me — !"

Violet cuts in furiously, "Well I put it upside down Paris because I was going to use — !"

[...]

There is one chair," I begin pleasantly, "and two children who want to use it. Now, let's think how — "

As I talk in soft, reasonable tones, I am aware that it is all phony, all this "problem solving" and "conflict resolution" and "triangulating amongst squabbling siblings" that one is supposed to engage in these days. However the matter ends I will probably have misjudged one, and probably both, of the children.

And so, in an effort to not appear too "french" by resolving the altercation using "problem solving skills", "gathering facts", or "good judgement" Meghan applied good old RedState values and killed one of the kids, invaded their room, and converted all of their Gund stuffed animals to Christianity.

Okay, she really didn't, but don't think it didn't cross her mind what with a kitchen full of dirty dishes, dinner smoldering on the stove, a nasty yeast infection, and Mr. Meghan spending the Christmas Club money on undercar light effects for his IROC. I mean, it's enough to make Laura Bush go all Andrea Yates on their asses.

A frazzled Meghan then reveals the hitherto secret name of the one person who actually admits to reading The Fever Swamp:

Sometimes the conflict takes place on a battlefield so gauzy and remote that it is difficult, as a referee, to know where to start. Consider the predicament of Swamp reader Patricia Boylan. Years ago, on a trip to Washington, she was strolling along the National Mall with her children. It was a lovely evening and her little darlings began a game where they pretended to ride imaginary horses named after Civil War generals. "The next thing I know," Mrs. Boylan recalls, "they're in a heated argument, upset and yelling at each other, because Janet won't let William ride on Stonewall Jackson. There's nothing there, for heaven's sake. How do you get into a fight over something that doesn't even exist?"

And finally we see that the attraction of the medieval action toys from last week has worn off and the children have resorted to using scraps of cloth as toys:

We go through to the dining room, me juggling four glasses of milk, to find Molly decorously reading a novel above the fray, and Violet and Paris engaged in a furious, silent tug-of-war over a tiny scrap of white cloth decorated with red hearts.

"Hey, you two!"

"It's mine, Violet!" Paris yells. "Give it back!"

"I'm just looking at it, Paris!" she shouts. "It was just sitting there!"

"Listen, you two, it's just a stupid piece of fabric and neither of you can have it because it is suppertime," I say, more severely than would be ideal. I lean over and pluck away the cloth, instantly transforming myself from serene mediator to aggressor. Both children stop and look at me, injured.

Jim Carrey says the anti-depressant Prozac that he took may have helped him at one time, but he's better off without it now. In fact, says the actor, a no-drugs-or-alcohol policy and a spiritual life are the things that make him feel good. Carrey speaks frankly in a rare one-on-one interview with Steve Kroft to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Meanwhile, God plays a trick on the Intelligent Design Veterans for Goofy Science.

Thursday Night Basset Blogging: March of Time EditionWe just discovered this picture on my daughter's digital camera. This is Beckham at eight weeks old when Casey and Mrs. TBogg first brought him home from Palm Springs. That's Satchmo sniffing Beck's penis. They're dogs, you know...

From the same digital card, this is Beckham seven months later. He still has the penis.

...and Rod Dreher inadvertently (is there any other way?) made me laugh:

TOM WOLFE'S NOVEL [Rod Dreher]
Today is a big day around my house: my wife will finally finish "I Am Charlotte Simmons," the new Tom Wolfe novel, which means I'll get my hands on it. Julie loves the book, and says she's amazed that Wolfe, in his seventies, got the reality of college life down so accurately. She's seven years out of college, and says the book rings true to her. Moreover, she says that she understands why The New York Times and other MSM outlets have negged the book. She told me last night, "Tom Wolfe rejects the sexual revolution, and his protagonist is a good girl with traditional morals. When she compromises on her standards, she takes it hard. I bet this worldview is inconceivable for the kind of people who write reviews for The New York Times, but it makes perfect sense to readers like me."(my emphasis).

Well, yeah. It kinda of makes it easier that way. You would think a guy with a name like Rod would know that.

Colin Powell, who apparently spent the last four years as Secretary of State (who knew?) is calling it quits. Mr. Powell is expected to immediately begin work on his memoir: My Successes At Foggy Bottom causing the many New York City publishing houses expected to bid on the book to begin research on exactly where it is that you place an ISBN number on a 3x5 card.

President Bush on Saturday painted a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq, claiming significant progress in the U.S. military's battle in an insurgent stronghold.

In his weekly radio address, Bush applauded the assault on Fallujah, west of Baghdad. About 80 percent of the city was said to be under U.S. control, with insurgents pushed into a narrow corner. But the battle has claimed 22 American lives and wounded about 170 U.S. troops and violence has now spread to other Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq.

"Our forces have made significant progress in the last several days. They are taking back the city, clearing mosques of weapons and explosives stockpiled by insurgents and restoring order for law-abiding citizens," Bush said.

The fighting started in Mosul two days after U.S. tanks entered Fallujah. Armed men appeared in a sudden tide on a main street in Iraq's third-largest city, a wide avenue where so many American convoys had been ambushed that locals nicknamed it "Death Street."

At 11 a.m. Thursday, the target was an armored SUV. Witnesses said that after its Western passengers were chased into a police station, the driver was burned alive atop the vehicle as the attackers shouted "Jew!" The city of 1.8 million people then devolved into chaos. Thousands of police officers abandoned their precinct houses. The governor's house was set alight. Insurgents took the police chief's brother, himself a senior officer, into his front yard and shot him dead.

Looks like Mission Accomplished, We've Turned the Corner, and The Light At the End Of the Tunnel all wrapped up in one, except for the fact that the light at the end of the tunnel is being generated by flames from a burning governor's house.

I see that the Scourge of Brown People Who Should Be White Like Her has posted the picture of the little Hispanic girl being smuggled into the country while hidden in the pinata. It would be unfair to imagine that, deep deep down, the real Michelle would like just one whack at that pinata to teach that little lawbreaker about America's lost sovereignty.

His mother, Cherry Jones, said she received the news of her son’s death in a phone call, which she called “every mother’s worst dream.”

“To the public he was known as Old Dirty Bastard, but to me he was known as Rusty. The kindest most generous soul on earth,” her statement said.

For those keeping score at home, having your son known as "Old Dirty Bastard" is a mother's second worst dream.

...then there was Britney Spears releasing a new CD called Greatest Hits: My Prerogative. We're guessing that she knows the meaning of three out of four words.

Speaking of which David Brooks defended the Presidents prerogative to get rid of anyone in the CIA who made him look bad when they leaked documents that showed that they were right and he was wrong:

Over the past several months, as much of official Washington looked on wide-eyed and agog, many in the C.I.A. bureaucracy have waged an unabashed effort to undermine the current administration.

At the height of the campaign, C.I.A. officials, who are supposed to serve the president and stay out of politics and policy, served up leak after leak to discredit the president's Iraq policy. There were leaks of prewar intelligence estimates, leaks of interagency memos. In mid-September, somebody leaked a C.I.A. report predicting a gloomy or apocalyptic future for the region. Later that month, a senior C.I.A. official, Paul Pillar, reportedly made comments saying he had long felt the decision to go to war would heighten anti-American animosity in the Arab world.

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

Yup. The CIA is a "hotbed of liberals". Bet you never thought you'd read that in one sentence.

...and lastly, since appealing to the lowest common denominator to seems to be the order of the day, we finished the week with the American Music Awards which is kind of the short bus of awards programs and seems to exist only to validate the cultural zeitgeist of the People magazine crowd. A flat Bon Jovi delivered an execrable "It's My Life" (which is a pretty horrid tune to begin with, but he and Richie Sambora have cute hair so who cares), then there was the cultural blip that was this years American Idol winner (who puts the awful in gawdawful), and Toby Keith be-hatted & bandanaed, croaking out a D-grade Jimmy Buffet-wannabe song with of the requisite cute-country-cliche wordplay that always makes the yokels go "hyuk".

There seems to be two culture wars in this country... and one of them is already lost, which actually occured to me when I got home Friday night and discovered I won't be reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers or The Collected Stories of Richard Yates any time soon since Beckham spent the afternoon eating them.

I'm still waiting for pages 31-37 of Yates to..... make an appearance, if you know what I mean.

Here, for your Saturday morning's enjoyment, is a collection of select quotes from Doug Giles, the motel minister who tries mightily to "get down wit da kidz" through his awkward use of slang and pop cultural references:

Millions of working-hard and playing-hard Americans took a day off Thursday to properly give major props to the 25 million vets who died defending this grand land.

[...]

And that’s where our bad-to-the-bone boys and girls in uniform come in!

From a qualitative standpoint, what these young guns get from the military and then bring to the US’s table is now more necessary in our wafty and wussy society than a Bose voice processor is for Ashlee Simpson’s whimpering voice.

It’s hard not to go Van Gogh when one looks at the societal swill within our culture, because it often seems as if discipline, patriotism and sacrificial living are vanishing from our national spirit faster than a large order of fries would in front of Michael Moore.

[...]

In Moore’s film, this myopic agenda-laden loser highlighted the exception (the atypical soldier) and not the rule for his propaganda purposes, which left the ludicrous Left’s splooged-brain droogies with the impression that our soldiers are bad people…very bad and stupid people

[...]

Aside from Moore and his glazed-eyed followers’ anti-military spirit, there is also an anti-greatness antagonistic metrosexual “thang” going on within in our society that is softening our men away from the necessary masculine traits that our soldiers embody--characteristics that have made our nation Valedictorian of the Planet.

[...]

You guys have met the metrosexuals haven’t you? You can now find them, like an STD, everywhere in America.

[...]

Today, instead of men celebrating the testosterone fog God created us to live in, which makes us by fiat the provider, protector, hunter and hero of our nation, men now are preening, irresponsible, passive navel gazers to whom responsibility, courage, self sacrifice, and honor have become dirty words.

[...]

Yes, at least the ones who are protecting our land haven’t bought into the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy garbage. Hopefully our soldiers’ attitude, what they live and die for will once again be resurrected within our land in this critical hour before we become a completely neutered neutralized Nancy Boy nation.

My ClashPoint is this: America owes a lot to its veterans and our current soldiers, not only for the sacrifices they made and still make for our freedom but for who they are as individuals and the largesse of spirit they represent as a collective body. We should shun both those that rail against our great warriors (who protect us in more ways than we know) and we should avoid the boy- band softening of our culture that takes away the internal grist of our inner warrior.

Oh, and Doug gives us tips on how to spot "metrosexuals":

Wax their eyebrows
· Go to the gym way, way too much
· Use four different products in their hair (and actually call them products)
· Check their hair several times in their spoon’s reflection while dining at a bistro
· Actually enjoy clothes shopping, and
· Are their own love interest.

Good evening and welcome to America's Worst Mother Theatre . As our play opens we find Mummy, played with great gusto by Meghan Gurdon, has finally sobered up and has whisked the children (Ann-Aphasia, Peaseblossom, Lughassadh, and Hud) off to a magic fairyland where the sky is blue, there's rich cake for everyone, and Mr. Meghan can't slip off to be with his mistress. Let's peek in:

Everyone beams as Paris messes up his face and sends eight precise blasts across the lumpy surface of his birthday cake. There are no candles. I forgot them, as I did the toothbrushes. Furthermore, I had tried to keep the whipped cream pristine by sticking plastic spoons along the edges to hold up the tin foil, but traveling for five hours in a large storage container on top of a car does not enhance the appearance of any dessert, spoons or no.

[...]

It is a sunny day in every sense. Our family is "away for the weekend," an airy phrase which here means, "has avoided giving a birthday party for a classful of eight-year-old boys by taking our children to the seaside instead." I booked the room months ago, partly to avoid another grueling birthday party and partly on the understanding that if our side lost the election we might want to get out of Washington to clear our heads. As it happens, things went our way, and all is heady and giddy and very, very cheerful.

Which is to say, John Kerry didn't win and the girls aren't being forced to have abortions before they can attend brother Hud's wedding to that cute boy with the musical laugh who lives down the street . No, the Gurdon's are ensconced at the Rehoboth Beach Golden Tiki Motel to celebrate Hud's eight birthday by forcing the children to stay indoors on a beautiful day and play with action figures purchased from Ye Olde Boringe Toyye Shoppe:

The children drop to the floor brandishing the plastic medieval figurines they received at breakfast. Molly opens a small case and begins arranging a selection of old figures inside a glass case that holds the motel DVD player. Out come a swan, an otter, a donkey, a dog, a wolf, Maid Marian, Robin Hood, a girl pirate, a mandrill, a bear cub, a tiger, two cavaliers, four princesses, Robin Hood (again), and most of a family of fuzzy cats with jointed limbs from a different species of toy.

"And they threw their swords away, jumped off their horses, and began to wrestle," Paris tells his sisters, beginning mid-Game. He entangles two new plastic knights and twists them around, all wrestly-like.

"Ermph!"

"What a terrible sight," Violet remarks blandly, wafting a princess in a sparkly blue dress over to the field of battle.

As we can see, it is only Peaseblossom who recognizes the overt homoerotic play of Hud who puts the errant in "knight errant". But Meghan (as usual) doesn't notice Hud's gay-play as she is transfixed by daughter Lughassadh's absorbtion with her figurines:

I glance at Molly, who is arranging figurines in a kind of trance. These imaginary games used to absorb her utterly; she and her brother could play for hours, literally, with nothing more than, say, a bottle top and a bit of plastic scrounged from the park and maybe a Playmobil pirate or two. It wasn't cheeseparing on our part that accounted for the paucity of playthings, they didn't need anything much to spark an epic. These days, however, it is harder for her to disappear into childish narratives, and Paris knows it.

Apparently, in Lughassadh's slowly collapsing world, the two princesses (one of whom is obviously some kind of slut...probably the one in red) are vying for the attention of a gentleman caller, someone who is the "expected something that we live for." I sense definite figurine tension in the air. Meanwhile:

Ah, yes. The unicorn. Son Hud wants to "ride" it (let's not go there), while the two sisters fight over it, which can only lead to the unicorn having it's horn snapped off which is symbolic of what Meghan has done to Mr. Meghan for the weekend considering that his mistress recently laid in a large supply of that warming lube that he's so fond of.

Next we find that the Gurdons, who really spend way too much time with each other, have some kind of super-secret language that only they can understand:

"They're all raxals," my husband says with infinite satisfaction, settling back on the motel bed having echoes Violet's long-ago inversion of c's and s's. When she was two, birds flew through the xsy, children went to xsool, and those fluffy things you see hoarding nuts were xswillers. Naturally, we still use these terms, along with yodit (a dairy product eaten at brekiss and bekfrist), franditches (a conventional luncheon item), and wahdooin (an enquiry into one's activities).

Doesn't that make you just want to xshit?

That's all for this week. Next week: Mr. Meghan figures out where Scott Peterson slipped up...

Bob Dylan's Masters of War is a hard-hitting, anti-war song produced more than 20 years before any current Boulder High School student was born.

More than 40 years after its release, the song has been resurrected at Boulder High with huge and confusing repercussions that prompted Secret Service agents to pay the campus a visit Thursday.

[...]

Some students and parents apparently let the Secret Service and talk-radio stations know they were unhappy with the plan of a trio of students to do a poetry reading of the song, accompanied by background music, according to Ron Cabrera, the school's principal.

Rumors were rampant that during an audition and rehearsal for today's talent show, the students changed Dylan's powerful last verse at the end of the song to say that they hoped that President Bush was going to die.

The last verse begins: "And I hope that you die; And your death'll come soon."

Secret Service agents interviewed Cabrera on Thursday to determine what all the uproar was about and whether any threats were being made against the president's life.

"They were following up and doing their due diligence," Cabrera said of the agents' visit. "They had been receiving calls from the community and, in the course of the talk show, felt like they had heard (the students) inciting physical harm to the president."

Cabrera said he talked to the students and teachers who have been working with them, and he was told the group, which calls itself the Coalition of the Willing, made no reference to Bush.

"I don't know why it surfaced," Cabrera said of the complaints. "I think they're surprised by all the allegations."

Cabrera said he also showed the agents the lyrics of the entire song. The agents appeared to have left satisfied that no bona-fide threat was being directed at the president, he said.

You gotta love the brain trust that is talk radio and its listeners...

Perhaps the biggest winners on Tuesday were all those people who said they voted to protect "moral values." Oh, we understand that this concern had nothing whatever to do with providing for the poor or making sure children have health insurance. And we also know that the amorality of sending young men and women to die for a war grounded in a lie is not what you meant either.

What you "moral values" voters were talking about, of course, was the need for a more muscular intolerance toward gays and lesbians, the recriminalization of abortion, the end of stem cell research and the protection of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance - no doubt the most important issues facing a nation that is now mired in $7-trillion in debt and an intractable war.

This week's Basset Blogging features the late great Cooder who passed away seven years ago and was the best damn dog I ever had. There was not a time when I sat down on the couch that he wasn't there right next to me. If I was on the floor, he was laying next to me. My wife would make him his dinner and he wouldn't eat it until I picked the bowl up and stirred it for him. He was my best friend.

The look on his face on the day that I had to put him down (cancer that had spread into his spine) will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I don't follow the NBA. I stopped paying attention when they quit calling traveling and when the forwards forgot how to hit from outside. So, having said that, I will admit that I am completely unfamiliar with Ron Artest. Never heard of him. Sorry. Next. But then I read this today:

Indiana Pacers forward Ron Artest said Wednesday that he asked coach Rick Carlisle for time off because of a busy schedule that included promoting a soon-to-be released rap album, which led to his two-game benching.

Artest held a short news conference before Wednesday night’s 102-68 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, and in his usual ambiguous manner, tried to explain why he was benched.

Artest said that he asked Carlisle for as much as a month off to heal his aching body and recover from a particularly busy schedule.

“My body has been aching, I was going to take some time off and I said it the wrong way,” Artest said. “Everything that happened wasn’t too negative. I kind of surprised the team by wanting to take some games off, just to get back together, maybe stay home for a little bit, rest a little bit and come back.”

Okay. The season is all of five games old...and he wants to take some time off and "maybe stay home for a little bit".

Unbelievable.

Maybe it's me, but why, when I think of Artest do I see this guy in my head?

Iraq’s media regulator warned news organizations on Thursday to stick to the government line on the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action. Invoking a 60-day state of emergency declared ahead of the Fallujah assault, Iraq’s Media High Commission urged media to distinguish between insurgents and ordinary residents of the Sunni Muslim city. The authority, set up by the former U.S. governor of Iraq, is intended to be independent of the government and deter state meddling after decades of strict control under Saddam Hussein.

Cuz, you see, it's the High Commission this time so it's, you know, different.

The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to block the nation’s only law allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients die more quickly.

The appeal from Attorney General John Ashcroft had been expected since May, when a lower court ruled the federal government could not punish Oregon doctors who prescribed lethal doses of federally controlled drugs.

Oregon voters approved the law, and since 1998 more than 170 people have used it to end their lives. Most had cancer.

The Bush administration has argued that assisted suicide is not a “legitimate medical purpose” and that doctors take an oath to heal patients, not help them die.

Which presents all kinds of implications considering Justice Rehnquist's current situation. My guess is that Scalia will vote to allow assisted suicide out of concern that Rehnquist might return and find out that Antonin (also known as "Nino" to his friends, or "Sir" to Clarence Thomas) has already made off with Rehnquist's prized red stapler as well as that Snicker's bar he kept in the left-hand drawer, second one down.

Political tempers are running hot even after the election. On Saturday, Gary Jimenez discovered two tires slashed on his Volvo station wagon with its four anti-Bush bumper stickers. Lest he miss the point, the vandals left a note on the windshield that said: "We voted . . . Now you can either move to another country (maybe France, Germany, Iran or Pakistan will take you) or stop your whiney belly aching. This country was founded by righteous God-fearing men of integrity like George W. Bush. Now, take off these bumper stickers. We don't want to see them again."

San Diego's mayoral race is headed to the courts, where a lawsuit filed yesterday contends that the write-in candidacy of Councilwoman Donna Frye – who appears to hold a slender lead – violated the City Charter.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney John Howard, seeks an injunction halting the vote count by the county registrar of voters, a finding that the Nov. 2 ballot with a space for a mayoral write-in was "improper and unlawful," and a runoff election pitting Mayor Dick Murphy against challenger Ron Roberts.

Need I mention that Murphy and Roberts are Republicans, and Frye is a...c'mon...you guess.

The Corner Kids (Dopey, Grumpy, Sleazy, Dopey, Dopey, Dopey, and Ramesh) are still in an absolute frenzy over Arlen Specter (start here and read up if you don't have anything better to do like clean out your ears with a burr drill or maybe shave your back [Karen Hughes only]).

It's become so bad over there I'm starting to look forward to a post, any post, by the Derb. How friggin' sad is that?

Even before last Tuesday's election, speculation was running rampant about who might fill top jobs in a second Bush administration. Among those mentioned for U.S. attorney general: Mobile native and former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor.

Publications ranging from The National Journal, a respected political weekly in Washington, D.C., to The Guardian newspaper in London have described Pryor as a candidate to replace U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, whom some expect to leave after almost four years in the job.

Pryor, now serving temporarily as a judge on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, declined to comment Friday. Last year, Democrats in the U.S. Senate blocked his nomination to a lifetime appeals court slot, arguing that he is too ideological to make an even-handed judge.

Republican insiders disagree about whether Pryor is a serious contender for the nation's top law enforcement job, with some labeling the prospect unlikely. In any case, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, said last week that he intends to talk to President Bush about renominating Pryor for a permanent seat on the 11th Circuit.

A protege of Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, Mr. Pryor is a parody of what Democrats imagine Mr. Bush to be plotting for the federal courts. We have argued strongly in favor of several of Mr. Bush's nominees -- and urged fair and swift consideration of all. And we have criticized Democratic attacks on nominees of substance and quality. But we have also urged Mr. Bush to look for common ground on judicial nominations, to address legitimate Democratic grievances and to seek nominees of such stature as defies political objection. The Pryor nomination shows that Mr. Bush has other ideas.

Mr. Pryor is probably best known as a zealous advocate of relaxing the wall between church and state. He teamed up with one of Pat Robertson's organizations in a court effort to defend student-led prayer in public schools, and he has vocally defended Alabama's chief justice, who has insisted on displaying the Ten Commandments in state court facilities. But his career is broader. He has urged the repeal of a key section of the Votings Rights Act, which he regards as "an affront to federalism and an expensive burden." He has also called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history." Whatever one thinks of Roe, it is offensive to rank it among the court's most notorious cases, which include Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, after all.

Mr. Pryor's speeches display a disturbingly politicized view of the role of courts. He has suggested that impeachment is an appropriate remedy for judges who "repeatedly and recklessly . . . overturn popular will and . . . rewrite constitutional law." And he talks publicly about judging in the vulgarly political terms of the current judicial culture war. He concluded one speech, for example, with the following prayer: "Please, God, no more Souters" -- a reference to the betrayal many conservatives feel at the honorable career of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.

Bill Pryor: John Ashcroft without the Crisco.

Added: (David/Bill mix-up corrected...sorry. White guys all look the same to me)

Just for the hell of it I thought it would be fun to see the world through Dick Cheney's eyes (without the worry of that imminent myocardial infarction or having to have sex with Lynne...ick). So first read this:

Global warming is heating the Arctic almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens the livelihoods of millions of people and could wipe out polar bears by 2100, according to an eight-nation report released on Monday.

The report, the work of more than 250 scientists and the biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, found that the accelerating melt could point to wider disruptions from a build-up of human emissions of heat-trapping gases in the earth’s atmosphere.

The “Arctic climate is now warming rapidly and much larger changes are projected,” according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), which was commissioned by the Arctic Council and funded by the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

The report projects that temperatures in the Arctic will rise by 8 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. If temperatures then stayed stable, the Greenland icecap would melt altogether in 1,000 years and raise global sea levels by about 23 feet.

Possible benefits like more productive fisheries, easier access to oil and gas deposits or trans-Arctic shipping routes would be outweighed by threats to indigenous peoples and the habitats of animals and plants.

Now we put on our Dick Cheney Greed Glasses and read it again:

Global warming is heating the Arctic almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens the livelihoods of millions of people and could wipe out polar bears by 2100, according to an eight-nation report released on Monday.

The report, the work of more than 250 scientists and the biggest survey to date of the Arctic climate, found that the accelerating melt could point to wider disruptions from a build-up of human emissions of heat-trapping gases in the earth’s atmosphere.

The “Arctic climate is now warming rapidly and much larger changes are projected,” according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), which was commissioned by the Arctic Council and funded by the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

The report projects that temperatures in the Arctic will rise by 8 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years. If temperatures then stayed stable, the Greenland icecap would melt altogether in 1,000 years and raise global sea levels by about 23 feet.

Possible benefits like more productive fisheries,easier access to oil and gas deposits or trans-Arctic shipping routes would be outweighed by threats to indigenous peoples and the habitats of animals and plants.

Andrew Coyne has a bunch of numbers that says that the evangelicals weren't that big of deal, but don't tell that to the can't hold a real job losers ministers:

But the untold story of the 2004 election, according to national religious leaders and grass-roots activists, is that evangelical Christian groups were often more aggressive and sometimes better organized on the ground than the Bush campaign. The White House struggled to stay abreast of the Christian right and consulted with the movement's leaders in weekly conference calls. But in many respects, Christian activists led the charge that GOP operatives followed and capitalized upon.

This was particularly true of the same-sex marriage issue. One of the most successful tactics of social conservatives -- the ballot referendums against same-sex marriage in 13 states -- bubbled up from below and initially met resistance from White House aides, Christian leaders said.

In dozens of interviews since the election, grass-roots activists in Ohio, Michigan and Florida credited President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, with setting a clear goal that became a mantra among conservatives: To win, Bush had to draw 4 million more evangelicals to the polls than he did in 2000. But they also described a mobilization of evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics that took off under its own power.

In battlegrounds such as Ohio, scores of clergy members attended legal sessions explaining how they could talk about the election from the pulpit. Hundreds of churches launched registration drives, thousands of churchgoers registered to vote, and millions of voter guides were distributed by Christian and antiabortion groups.

The rallying cry for many social conservatives was opposition to same-sex marriage. But concern about the Supreme Court, abortion, school prayer and pornography also motivated these "values voters." Same-sex marriage, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, was "the hood ornament on the family values wagon that carried the president to a second term."

[...]

Some Christian leaders perceived not only a threat to biblical morality, but also a winning political issue. Same-sex marriage "is different from abortion," said the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark. "It touches every segment of society, schools, the media, television, government, churches. No one is left out."

Except the gays...

Personally I look forward to a day when all gays can come out of the closet and experience the same rights as any citizen of this great country of ours. I also look forward to shoving the "Christian leaders" kicking and screaming into these now-empty (but well-decorated) closets, and locking the doors and maybe even putting some towels up against that gap at the bottom of the door so that we can't hear them anymore.

Boy. They just hate it when there isn't absolute obedience. James Dobson wants to take a belt to a Senator:

The head of a leading conservative group said Sunday that Sen. Arlen Specter "is a big-time problem" and that his quest to serve as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee "must be derailed."

The comments from James Dobson, founder of the nonprofit Christian organization Focus on the Family, came four days after the moderate Republican from Pennsylvania told reporters that any Supreme Court nominee intent on overturning Roe v. Wade probably would not win Senate approval.

"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, who'd overturn Roe versus Wade, I think that is unlikely," Specter said Wednesday, in the wake of President Bush's re-election. "And I have said that bluntly during the course of the campaign, that Roe versus Wade was inviolate."

That comment sparked an avalanche of criticism from Christian conservatives who supported Bush's campaign. But Specter said Sunday that his remark was misconstrued and argued the uproar was fueled by people opposed to his "independence."

Specter is in line for the Judiciary Committee chairmanship. The chairman has broad powers to advance or hold up a president's judicial nominees.

"Senator Specter is a big-time problem for us," Dobson said on ABC's "This Week." He said Specter had made "one of the most foolish and ill-considered comments that a politician has made in a long time."

Dobson added, "There are many, many members of that committee that are more qualified and less of a problem than Senator Specter."

For those not familiar with Dobson (comb-over, big dumbass glasses, sanctimonius chunk of weasel shit...that guy), here he is abusing a dog as an example of how to raise a child.

Joining us now is the author of the new "Strong-Willed Child," and the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson.

Dr. Dobson, thank you very much for being with us tonight.

DR. JAMES DOBSON, CHAIRMAN OF FOCUS ON THE FAMILY: Alan, good to be with you again.

COLMES: Thank you, sir.

Should all religions have the opportunity to have their symbols displayed publicly?

DOBSON: No. That’s a much broader interpretation than we’ve had in the past. There is an historic context to the Ten Commandments. And, you know, given this court’s 42-year history of being antagonistic to religion, we just have really no confidence at all that they’re going to do the right thing.

COLMES: Yes, but if they’re going to have the Ten Commandments, if that is the standard, should all religions have the same opportunity to have their symbols displayed?

DOBSON: Well, I think if local municipalities have drawn that conclusion and that’s what they want to do, I guess they can. It should be an expression of government of the people, by the people and for the people.

But the truth of the matter is that this culture is largely Judeo- Christian, and that has been its heritage. And that’s been the history. And to come along now and sandblast half the buildings in Washington doesn’t make any sense at all.

COLMES: All right, the point is though, what’s good for one has to be good for all. You can’t say only these particular religions get to have their symbols displayed.

In 1980, the last time the Supreme Court (search) ruled on this, what it did was, I’m sure you’re familiar with this, struck down the Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments. Do you agree with that decision, or should there be a requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in school?

DOBSON: I certainly do not agree with that. Seventy-two percent of the American people disagree with that decision.

And again, this goes all the way back to 1962, when the court began this hostility to religion, removing prayer in schools. The next year it was bible reading in schools. And then it was prayer at graduation ceremonies. And then it was the Ten Commandments. And from there to the Pledge of Allegiance.

It has been a consistent pattern. And we’re going to see it again, I’m afraid.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Yes, and you know, you could see a correlation — and, by the way, good to see you, Dr. Dobson — with the decline of values in society with a lot of these court decisions. And I don’t think it’s by accident, by the way.

But I’ve got to compliment you. The "New Strong-Willed Child," — I’ve finished it now — it’s an excellent book. I got a lot of advice. You know, I’m raising two kids. But they’re not that strong-willed like their dad, which is a good thing. They’ve got all their mother’s good qualities. It’s a great book.

DOBSON: I appreciate your comment, Sean.

Which is Sean's way of saying that he has finally stopped beating his kids... as if being Sean Hannity's kid isn't punishment enough.

I did not watch the interview live, but I am given to understand from this article that only days after the election Karl Rove was already on television urging the passage of the constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriage that has already failed once. As a supporter of gay marriage, I naturally disagree with this, but I find even more disturbing the use of the US Constitution for this purpose, especially since it has overtones of paying off a political base. We are in the midst of a war against Islamicfascism and this kind of divisiveness seems particularly ill-timed.

"Ha shut up, silly woman."
Said that reptile with a grin.
"You knew darn well I was a snake before you took me in."